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Saturday, June 21, 2014

Why Teachers Are Trying Out Apple TV In The Classroom

Apple TV is little black box
that can work miracles in a classroom.
Built largely for entertaining purposes by Apple, Apple TV is used
increasingly in the classroom by educators who primarily want to take advantage
of the mirroring capabilities of the device.
For those who are not familiar with the term “mirroring”, simply put, a
key feature in Apple devices called “AirPlay Mirroring” can literally mirror or
project your device’s screen (iPod/iPad/iPhone), via an LCD projector that is
connected to the Apple TV. All you need
aside from an Apple TV is an iPad 2 or newer, an LCD projector, and then, the
sky is the limit.

iBooks & Reading

Providing visual access to
iBooks for all students with access to just one iPad is, by itself, a reason for
a teacher to buy an Apple TV. Apple has
done an incredible job in offering digitized versions of children’s books. The size of its catalogue is impressive and
it is growing constantly. Cost-conscious
teachers may kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. For instance, they may opt to buy the digital
books, as these books cost only a fraction of the printed version, and be
rewarded with the bonus of implementing read aloud lessons in an intuitive way.
With an Apple TV the teacher is no longer “tied up” in front of the document
viewer. The teacher can navigate between
pages with a swipe of his/her finger, and while using the digital book, he/she
can, for instance, address a behavior problem using proximity to students. More importantly, the teacher can move around
the classroom and share the iPad and the read aloud experience with the
students by having students add their own comments on the pages of the book, and
even handing the iPad to a student while the teacher creates a visual organizer
of the story. All this, while the whole class has constant visual access to the
book.

In addition, iBooks offers a
great deal of options such as highlighting, adding post it notes, searching
definitions of words, as well as inserting information to pictures and
captions. All these add a touch of
augmented reality to the books, thus, transforming a simple read aloud activity
into a truly fascinating and highly engaging experience.

Math and Science Apps

Reading is not the only
subject that can benefit from an Apple TV in the classroom. Due to the fact that I am a math and science
teacher, I am quite familiar with several math and science apps, many of which
I use in my classroom on a daily basis.
There are many free or paid apps that support STEM Education and are
aligned with the Common Core Standards. All
of these apps are capable of offering students a unique learning experience,
quite distinct from the experiences a book or a website can offer. A teacher can choose to build a whole lesson based
solely on one app. Alternately, he/she
can choose to use an app to create a mini lesson, or simply use an app as a
means to complement a lesson and add a touch of pizzazz. In either case, an Apple TV can be used to
ensure visual access to the material by all learners at all times. Even more importantly, an Apple TV paired
with an iPad offers the opportunity for the students to interact with the
lesson collectively, and share these interactions in real time with each other. The implications of this can be
staggering. In a culture where team effort
is highly encouraged, and simultaneous stimulus input by multiple users is
promoted by all the major productivity platforms, MS Office, Google Drive,
Dropbox, to name a few, Apple TV seems to offer students the ability to learn
to be successful in this model from a very young age, thus, arming them with
the best experiences and skills before they enter the work force.

Gradually, more and more
educators realize that Apple TV provides spaces for a teacher to create highly
engaging lessons that captivate the students’ attention. In so doing, Apple TV fosters collaborative
learning, sponsors creativity, and cultivates a set of skills and talents that
can help young learners become successful.
If the rumor that support
for iBooks may be coming to Apple TV is true, the little black box will cement
its place in the classroom, as the options for educators at all levels who use Apple
TV in the classroom will be increased exponentially. However, regardless if this will ever happen,
Apple TV is something worth using in the classroom for its innovative
pedagogical potential.